


Flowers Facade and Bramble Thorns

by Flammenkobold



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fairy Tale Style, Happy Ending, Multi, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23983588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/pseuds/Flammenkobold
Summary: Once upon a time there was a powerful Cleric in love with a beautiful Prince.Once upon a time there was a beautiful Prince, cursed by an evil Sorcerer.Once upon a time there was a Paladin of Artemis, sworn to kill the evil Sorcerer.Once upon a time there was a Happy Ending.
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde, Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde/Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Flowers Facade and Bramble Thorns

Once upon a time there was a powerful dwarven Cleric in love with a beautiful Prince. The Prince was as cold as he was beautiful, though, and to win his hand you had to melt his heart. Many had tried and many had failed. They had shown off their power and the reckless deeds they had done in the Prince's name, shows of power so splendid and breathtaking that songs would be sung about them for centuries. Yet none could move the Prince's heart. The Cleric moved into the castle, quietly. He healed the people there and the Prince as well, quietly, he helped the cook in the kitchen and brought food to the Prince when he worked too long, quietly. And with every act of quiet kindness a tiny shard of ice was chipped away from the Prince's frozen heart.

Yet there was a danger neither of them realized, for the Prince had been cursed by a powerful Sorcerer, and when the last of the ice around his heart melted with a gentle kiss from the Cleric, his heart stopped beating. Grief stricken, the Cleric poured spell after spell of life into his lover's body, yet none would take hold, none would overcome the curse the Prince was under. But magic doesn't just disappear, it must go somewhere. First the dead tree in the courtyard blossomed to full bloom, then the wilting grass in the gardens grew long on the ground. The dried vines around the castle turned green and grew over the whole castle, until it was covered in vines and leaves. Between the cracks of the mortar grew roses, and outside the gardens a wall of brambles encased the castle like it was a tomb.

In his grief the Cleric returned to the caverns below the castle in which he had grown up and lay down to sleep. Once every hundred years he woke to walk the castle and see if his Prince had awakened, only to find him lying there in a bed of flowers: his beauty undisturbed by death, his body looking alive for all but the lack of the beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his chest from drawing breath.

While the Prince lay undisturbed in his grave and the Cleric was sleeping below in his tunnels, the Sorcerer had cursed the land and brought sickness and tyranny to many. One of those was a young Paladin, a goblin by birth, but raised by humans, as the Sorcerer had taken his family as he had taken many others. Sworn to end the Sorcerer's rule the Paladin sought a way to kill him. All of his plans were thwarted and he had to flee into the woods where the castle stood. Wounded, he lay down in a small clearing through which a silver stream ran. 

At night, by moonlight, he heard it whisper. _Drink from me, and you shall be healed_ , the stream said, and so he drank from it and was healed. The next night, by moonlight, he heard another whisper from the wind around him. _Take the leaves I carry, and I will hide you,_ the wind said, and so the Paladin did and was hidden from the sight of the Sorcerer and the men who had followed him. The night after, by moonlight, he heard a whisper coming from the trees. _Follow us and we will take you to a castle, in it lies a Prince, and if his heart is to beat again it will break the Sorcerer's power,_ the trees said, and so the Paladin followed the rustle of the trees until he came to the bramble bushes growing high, so high you could barely see the sky.

Now the brambles were so thick that nothing and no one could pass through them, but as luck would have it, the Paladin came across them when the Cleric was about to awaken, and so they were in bloom and relaxed, awaiting their creator's return. The Paladin was small and nimble, and he still had his cloak of leaves that protected him, and so with luck he found his way through the brambles unharmed. Inside the castle all lay still, the flowers and trees and bushes all in bloom, and it was a sight so beautiful it was breathtaking. But the Paladin paid them little mind as he had a mission to finish.

He searched the castle, high and low, but could not find the Prince. Finally he noticed a locked door in a tower that stood in the middle of the castle. The tower was almost higher than the bramble bushes outside. He broke the door open and went up the winding staircase as fast as his legs would carry him. Up and up and up until he reached another door. This one was made of vines and flowers and branches, and would not budge under his arrows nor the sharp sword he carried. Finally he sat down in front of the door in frustration, and lamented: "I have come all this way, sent by your siblings in the woods, to not be allowed entry," and when he said this the branches and the flowers and the vines listened and parted to let him in.

So the Paladin found the Prince, laid in his bed of flowers, gently covered by a blanket of moss, as if he had just laid down to sleep. His long hair framed a face so handsome that even the scar the Sorcerer had given him could not detract from its beauty. A sliver of moonlight fell through the small window, illuminating his fair complexion, and for a moment it stole the Paladin's breath, for he had not seen anyone more beautiful in his life.

When he stepped closer and leaned down to lay a hand on the Prince's cold cheek, a voice rang out behind him.

"Halt what you are doing and move away from him." The Cleric had awakened as he did every hundred years and had rushed up the tower to look for the Prince when he had noticed that someone else had entered the castle.

"I'm here to help," the Paladin promised, and the Cleric lowered his staff, which was engulfed in fire.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a Paladin, and I am here to break the Prince's curse and end the Sorcerer's reign."

Sadly the Cleric lowered his head and shook it. "I have tried anything I could, but even my powers won't help."

The Paladin remembered the water from the stream in the woods, and that he had taken a bit of it with him in his flask. He told the Cleric about it and what it could do. "If we work together, we can break the curse."

Upon the Paladin's confident words, hope blossomed in the Cleric's chest, like the first flowers of spring after a long harsh winter.

So they sat down on each side of the Prince. The Cleric cast his spells while the Paladin bedewed the Prince's lips with water. When the Cleric spoke the last words of his spell, the heart of the Prince started beating again. He drew a soft breath, and his eyes fluttered open to see his lover and the Paladin, both tinged in soft silver moonlight, and a smile rose to his lips. His smile was soft and the world so unused to it, for he had not smiled even before his thousand year slumber, that it gave a sigh of relief and the curse shattered. 

In the end the Sorcerer was slain by one of the Paladin's arrows, the Cleric helped heal the wounded from the Sorcerer's reign, and the Prince bestowed peace and prosperity on the land. They lived together in the castle, never to be parted again.

And if they have not died, they are still alive today.

**Author's Note:**

> Last line translated from the traditional fairy tale ending used in German.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Flowers Facade and Bramble Thorns [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25172224) by [KD reads (KDHeart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDHeart/pseuds/KD%20reads)




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